For the second time in the last 24 hours, New Orleans police officers took gunfire Wednesday (Nov. 30) while investigating an armed robbery.

Responding officers were not injured and did not return fire in Wednesday's incident, which police said began with a call of an armed robbery about 11:40 a.m. near North Galvez and Annette streets in the city's 7th Ward.

Two men have been arrested, identified by police as Keith Craig, 44, and Harold Mitchell, 42. It's unclear whether they were involved in the initial armed robbery. Authorities continue to search for at least one other person.

Officers responding to the armed robbery spotted a white Ford Expedition driving erratically and tried to pull it over near Annette and Law streets. The car's occupants exited and shots were fired at police.

NOPD Chief Michael Harrison, addressing reporters at the scene, said he could not say how many shots were fired at police. It was unclear whether shots were fired by one or more of the vehicle's occupants. He said it was unclear at that point if the suspects who fired at police were involved in the armed robbery at North Galvez and Annette.

Police set up a roughly two-block perimeter, and deployed SWAT members and an aerial drone to help in the search. A helicopter could be seen circling over the area. Louisiana State Police also assisted in the operation.

One of the two arrested men was found hiding under a house, Harrison said, while the other was located in a different block. Police also found a gun under a house, though Harrison did not say whether it was used against the officers.

Harrison praised officers for showing restraint, and called the situation a "very dangerous scene."

Lorin Fleming said he was sitting on his porch, at New Orleans and Hope streets, when he saw four or five officers screaming, "Let me see your hands!" to a man who was later searched against an armored car. After searching the man, officers handcuffed him and led him to a police car, Fleming said.

Another area resident, who asked to remain anonymous for his safety, called the suspects "idiots" upon hearing about shots being fired at police.

"They need to grow up," he said of the suspected shooters.

This is at least the third time in the last three months that local law enforcement has taken fire. Tuesday night, a man in Treme fired shots at officers who were responding to a reported armed robbery. The man, identified by police as 20-year-old Dequest McDowell, was later arrested. No officers were injured.

Then in August, not far from Wednesday's incident, a Louisiana State Police trooper was shot in the elbow during what a witness described as a "rolling gun battle" between police and a man later identified as 37-year-old Bernie Porche.

Porche later shot himself in the head at New Orleans and Law streets, after being wounded by police.

During Wednesday's search for suspects, armored trucks slowly made their way around the blocks, stopping intermittently. Closely following the trucks on foot were K-9 dogs with their handlers and SWAT team members in helmets, carrying long guns, battering rams and other gear. They peered into cars and entered houses as the search for at large suspect or suspects continued.

Meanwhile, Sandra Spurling crouched on the sidewalk against a wall near the corner of Hope and New Orleans streets Wednesday afternoon and read a paperback book as she waited for police to allow her back into her neighborhood. Spurling had just gotten off a 12-hour shift sitting with patients when she drove up to police tape marking off blocks that included where she lives on Allen Street.

"I just want to get a shower and go to bed," she said.

Her house was within the perimeter in August, too, when police were shot at and Porche was killed. She was at home that time. She sad she was on her porch shaking lint off a towel when she heard about five gunshots and "got down on my porch."

"I was quarantined until 6:30," she said, referring to the SWAT operation that day , which started in the early afternoon and went into the evening. She said police took her gate off its hinges when they came to search her house.

She said she hoped police would be gone Wednesday night earlier than they were last time.

Another neighbor who lives near the corner of North Dorgenois and Allen streets also recalled the SWAT activity near his house in August. The man, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his safety, said he wished the neighborhood could get "cleaned up." Drug deals routinely happen in the area, which surrounds Hardin Park, he said.

"It's sad. This is a playground, for God's sake," he said.

Around 3 p.m., school children in uniforms started showing up among the crowds of people watching the police activity, some of the observers waiting for permission from police to go back into their homes.

The faces of dozens of children on a school bus were pressed against the row of passenger-side windows as the bus drove past Hardin Park, across from where SWAT team members clad in black continued searching door-to-door.